Ill Met by Moonlight: the 1st Twilight Tommy Tale
by GitariArt
Summary: Tommy wakes up miserably in a world which is not right and has to come to terms with what has happened to him and the rest of the volunteer patients of a clinical drug trial gone "wyrd". Is what Tommy sees real or in his head and are the dreams helpful? Then, just when Tommy starts to come to grips with the hidden-in-plain-view society, of which he is now part, unintended territori


**[** Warning/Apology: Due to my vision disability and the limits of spell-checking software, this story probably contains grammatical problems. I have combed through every chapter over a half dozen times. I am also seeking beta readers. I apologize for any inconvenience and will gladly correct any misspellings or grammar fails that are brought to my attention.

Acknowledgement: the Straight Lane Group, for sitting there.

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to persons or characters, living, dead, or fictional, or to actual places or events, is /

Gratitude: Extra-special thanks goes to Rachel, my endlessly loving and encouraging wife.]

 **Ill Met by Moonlight**

A Twilight Tommy Tales

Prologue:

Sitting in my little black Festiva nest to a massive and chatty (no longer a) man, I looked for any distraction to help me calm my mind. The big guy is jovial and generally pleasant, however he tends to speak for the sake of filling any silence. So, I turn to my notes/journal and start to transcribe a more organized outline. Either my companion is oblivious to me, or he ignores the rudeness—mine and his own.

It feels like it has been a lifetime; in many ways I think it has at least been the beginning of one. Yet, my notes confirm, it has been less than three weeks since waking, once more in the really Real World. I hope that what I sit here distracting myself from, will not bring this new life to a gruesome end.

If nothing happens tonight, or if our quarry does show up and I survive the encounter, then I shall have to expand this outline into something more. Perhaps I shall attempt to publish and distribute a, sort of, beginner's guide to other hapless mortals that have been unfortunate enough to be "touched" by spirits, only to be returned to a mundane home that has moved on—and was never as mundane as they thought in the first place…

So I did and now you are reading it.

17 Nights Earlier…

The shaking hurt and the hurt helped to wake me. My overall aching quickly resolved into two types of soreness. First and foremost, the sore of exhaustion, the all-over body ache of needing more sleep. That deep weariness was both why I needed shaking to wake, as well as the shaking barely working. The other sore was a variety of localized pains, from what would eventually prove to be scrapes and bruises, plus strained and knotted muscles. It was these secondary aches which sent sharp jolts past my exhaustion, every time I was gently jostled, by the raspy-voiced man.

Who was raspy voice guy? How did he get here...? Where was here? These and other similar obtuse questions flashed through my brain as I opened my eyes and tried to answer them. Many answers arrived fairly swiftly, although in nothing like an organized or helpful manner. Plus, most of these answers did not make sense.

For instance, the raspy voice—like someone that had smoked too much and might need an oxygen tank—belonged to the grumpy divorcée. Now what did that mean...? Ken. Yeah, he had said he was Ken. So, how and why do I recognize Ken? And what was the deal with the weird lighting? And why was I in a strange bed? Why did I think I should be in a strange bed, just not that one?

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, then tried to rub lubrication back into some of my stiff and sore limbs. Kendal! Another brainwave, I was in room 106 of the Kendal drug study… something about final stage testing of new anxiety meds. Yeah, right, a group of us had been assigned to room 106 and Ken was one of us, he was ticked off that his newly ex-wife had hosed him so hard that he needed to play lab rat for extra cash.

Ken looked messed-up, worse than I felt. I had thought that Ken was in his mid thirties, now his sallow sunken cheeks, flinty baggy eyes, and dry graying hair made him seem much older. The day before… was that right? It felt like much longer, that could not make sense. Kendal was only going to keep us for observation from Friday night to Sunday morning, for that first round. We must still be at Kendal, so it must just be Sunday... no, Saturday, it must be, because I cannot remember Saturday having happened, yet.

I shook my head to try and get it back on track. Ken, yes good, Ken the day before he had seemed a little taller than me, maybe six two or six three, sort of generic brown hair, clean shaven, and average in build. Ken had seemed full of energy, not quite able to find a comfortable place to sit, always picking things up and putting them down again. Sitting on the bed in the weird light, the man seemed to loom over me, gaunt and eerily still.

Of course, the lighting still seemed weird, like it was too dark, yet clear at the same time, and I was a bit woozy still, so maybe I just wasn't getting a good look at the other man. That did not explain his stillness, but maybe Ken was less fidgety when he was tired.

My mind had started to weave some of its desperate partial-memories together into more cohesive threads of thought. Ken and the crappy bed in the strange room gave me Kendal and the medical trial. I also remembered drifting off to sleep, listening to the others already breathing the deep, steady breaths of sleep, behind their privacy curtains. I had muzzily thought that I had been the last to settle down and that it was just greater proof that I was so much younger and more vibrant than the other people in my room. I had guessed it was close to midnight, however Kendal had made me stow my phone with the rest of my personal gear and they did not provide any clocks, so it could have been earlier, or later... Then dark sleep… then the shaking and raspy-voice.

Had Ken's voice been so tortured, yesterday? It did not seem right, as so much did not. Plus, the rest seemed far more pressing, even more pressing than hunger or sore muscles.

looking around, it dawned on me that the bed I was in seemed weird for a reason other than it was not my bed, in the university dorms. When our group of volunteer guinea-pigs had realized that 106 was to be our room, for the whole weekend, I had selected one of the four beds under a window. The windows were barred and only looked out onto Kendal's side parking-lot and the blank yellow-beige wall of the neighboring office-building, but it was at least something more to look at than just the dreary room we had been assigned. Yet, as I came slowly to slightly more consciousness, I saw that I was in a bed on the opposite side of the room. So, my disorientation seemed to resurface in waves, making me feel queasy.

Then again, the mustiness of the blanket I was on may have been to blame, for my nausea. Only, I had gotten into my blankets and they had smelled freshly laundered… So, had Ken moved me?... and beat me up, without waking me? I could not remember ever aching so much.

Other data filtered through, in new disorienting waves. Room 106 had been set up like a hospital, or barracks, style layout. Eight single sized beds, each with a nightstand (one shallow drawer) and a barely-padded chair. The furnishings were not hospital grade, though; more like Ikea or Wal-Mart brands, at best. Although, each sleeping area did have a mint-colored hospital-style "privacy" curtained. There was also a long white-plastic folding table and matching chairs in the center of the room, between the two rows of beds. Otherwise, the room was bare, off white in color (both the painted cinder block walls and the linoleum floors), dominated by the slight buzz of overhead florescent lights, chilly, and smelling of cleaning fluids.

At least, that is how the room had been. As my senses came more awake, 106 was seriously different; beds jostled out of place (one was even upended against a wall), leaves on the floor, curtains missing, window blinds missing or at cockamamie angles, only six beds instead of eight, the bed on which I sat was the only one with a blanket, no sign of chairs or table, only one nightstand with a lamp (no shade, but the bulb produced weak, yet harsh, light) and the like. Plus, the floor had muddy tracks, the chill had turned outright cold, and the only smells were musty and stale dirt.

Grimy footprints on the linoleum led my eyes to my own bare and muddy sore-feet. I had fallen asleep in the scrubs and little no-skid socks which the clinic nurses had provided. The nurse assistants had collected all of our personal belongings, in well-labeled totes, insisting that regulations required we wear the lightweight hospital garments.

Again, that was then. Looking down, blue-cotton pant legs were tattered, almost to my knee and they were dirty all over. My mud-caked feet looked and felt as if I had hiked a thousand miles, through rocky swamps. I had no shirt, leaving my chest, arms, and back scratched and as dirty as my legs, again presumable from an impossible swamp trek.

I saw the evidence, felt the grit and sores, smelled the earthiness, however I still could not quite absorb what any of it meant. I did not even feel as if it was so terribly wrong. I did know that many things were wrong, I simply could not get my head around the sheer number of problems. Of course, I had only been up for a minute or so, so I had every reason to expect to become more enlightened as time progressed.

In addition to the dour-faced Ken, I also noted several other people in the room. 106 had three doors, one to the hall, one to the unisex toilet, and a windowless-steel emergency-exit direct to the rear of the building. To either side of the dull-brown emergency door, two large bodies slumped. I could not see them clearly in the gloom, yet some synapses fired in my brain, telling me the two men were the fireman and the engineer… Hank and Leroy. At least, I was almost certain about their names. The last two people in the room were women, Solanna and Gerri, again I felt as if I might be getting the names wrong somehow, yet counted myself lucky for being able to fish anything out of the disorienting waves of confusion.

Gerri, a knock out Girl-next-door tom-boy type was passed out in the bed next to me, which I was pretty sure was not where she had chosen the night before. The chatty blond Lit-major, Solanna, was lurking over Gerri and trying to rouse the woman, as Ken had done for me.

All of my roommates looked as tired and beat up as I did. Although myself and the big black guy, Leroy, and the muscly Hank were the only ones missing shirts. Could we have been playing some sort of team sport outside? Touch football, shirts verses skins...? In the middle of the cold October night...? I could only squint at the un-likeliness of it all.

Also why had Kendal put men and women in the same room? I vaguely remembered the two talkative participants, Hank and Solanna, commenting on how strange it was while we sat around the day before. We had all sort of assumed that we had been sent into room 106 to change into our scrubs (taking turns in the small toilet (no bathtub or shower), then they would sort us out more later. Only the longer we sat around waiting for our doses of the test meds, the more it became clear that we would all be sharing the room the whole time… Yet, for some reason none of us thought to mention it to the staff…

"Huh?" I said, as my wandering and wondering mind realized that Ken and Solanna had been talking to me.

"Are you okay? What's the last thing you remember?" the brownish-gray haired man repeated.

"I… I think so." I ran my hands over more of my body, looking for any serious damage. "The last thing I remember… was getting under my covers and going to sleep. I think it was close to midnight."

Solana cut in. "Did you see the nurse with the slugs?!... Wait, no of course not. You were the first one she hit." She looked worse than Ken. I had thought the lady looked pleasantly plump the day before, like maybe she never quite dropped her freshman twenty, yet still curvy rather than doughy. However, by the so called illumination of that one small lamp, Solana looked almost dead, sunken eyes within dark circles, hollow cheeks, limp and tangled hair, and she even seemed thinner.

Enough of my cognitive abilities had fired up to tell me that it was impossible that Solanna was thinner after one night. One partial night, because it was still very dark outside the three barred and wire reinforced safety windows. I had to be experiencing optical illusions, from the bad lighting and my own fatigue. Unless, I was drunk or drugged? Maybe I was having a bad reaction to the test medicine.

Gerri sat up and was looking around, my spluttering memory claimed that she was another student and in the military ROTC program. Oddly, the attractive woman did not look as bad off as the rest of us. Gerri, of course, remained a petite five-foot-three and pale skinned. The day before, Gerri had dressed in crisply starched dress shirt and slacks, with shoulder length brunette-hair almost as severe and no make-up, even so she had clearly been classically pretty. Gerri had seemed like a real life version of that movie trope, of the girl that is plane, until she just removed her glasses and lets her hair down—only anyone with eyes can tell how hot she is, from the start.

In the gloom and through my addled eyes, the vaguely militant woman looked more fresh, like a teen. Gerri's tussled hair seemed red, instead of brown, and there seemed to be delicate freckles on the creamy cheeks of her heart-shaped face, where none had been before. I blinked many times, trying to clear my vision, to no avail. Even Gerri's scrubs seemed cleaner and more form fitting, than any of the rest of us, and the only mud on her appeared to be an artful smudge on one smooth cheek.

Either Gerri's ROTC training helped her recovery, or she was just luckier than the rest of us, because she sprang awake and got her bearings faster than me. Gerri reached out and gently stroked Solana's arm, "Hey, slow down." She glanced at Ken and me, her green eyes actually found enough illumination to sparkle. "You two should check on them." Gerri nodded to the men on the floor by the emergency-exit. Then the unbelievably well off woman turned to Solana and spoke soothingly for a bit.

Ken moved towards Leroy and I headed for Hank. The two men were practically slumbering giants. Ken was a giant too, for that matter, as far as I was concerned. I was just over six-foot tall and every other man in the room was at least two or three inches taller than me. Leroy blew the curve, at easily six-four.

Additionally, Hank, like Gerri, belonged in movies, preferably set on beaches; he had not so subtly mentioned being selected for the fireman's calendar three years running. The forty-something fireman had a chiseled jaw, rock hard muscles, good hair with just a touch of gray at the temples, and a great tan—in Ohio… at the end of October. Life was so unfair to those of us built like… well, one unkind girl had said that I looked like I was made of broomsticks and tennis balls.

Hank was so perfect that even his reason for volunteering for the Kendal study had seemed designed to melt people's hearts. The rest of us were all students at the university and this semester's financial aid payments had gotten screwed up, leaving a bunch of us without living expenses until some unclear bureaucratic future. So, volunteering for a clinical trial that paid $1050, for a few weekends' worth of sitting around to be monitored, was a no brainer. Except for Ken, who was a fencing instructor at Ohio University, but needed the money because of his "bitch ex" and his own "incompetent Lawyer". Hank, on the other hand, had claimed to need extra cash in order to help his elderly twin sisters with their rent. The calendar model had even said, "I usually just get a side job with some of the other firemen, hanging drywall or building decks. But there just weren't any jobs, right now."

I had found it very hard to sympathize with the near-Adonis. Until, that is, I knelt down and shook the civil servant's bare shoulder. Hank looked bad, like maybe he had fallen face first into the mud and it had dried on him. Plus, the odd lighting made his tan seem much more orangey. Even when I touched Hank's skin it felt coarse and dry and almost as cold as the wall, on which I braced my other hand. Luckily, the big guy came awake with very little effort, on my part. Hank, was another one who easily shook off any sleepiness.

Meanwhile, Ken had roused Leroy. The African-American man was not just tall he was wide. When we had selected our beds from the singles offered, Leroy had not complained, but he had not fit either, feet stuck off the end and arms and waist draped over the sides. Leroy had been super-quiet; even so the easy charm of Hank and bubbly chitchat from Solana had drawn all of us into conversation at some point during the long hours that we had waited for our doses, without any other entertainment. Leroy eventually told us that he was an engineering major and his physique had made more sense to me, he really looked like someone that spent a lot of time sitting at a screen, either drafting plans or playing video games, or both consecutively. Of course, Leroy also looked off in the bad lighting, only he (like Gerri) seemed healthier somehow… something about the way he moved and stood… Plus, as much as Solana seemed paler than the previous day, Leroy seemed darker.

Such disparate input caused me to more closely examine the thoughts chaotically careening around my noggin. My best efforts concluded that of bad lighting and extreme fatigue were combining to produce mild hallucinations. I kept the adverse effect of drugs, from the clinical trial, as a possible factor as well. My spine ran cold at the thought of concussion, so I willfully avoided that.

I was somewhat heartened that, once all six of us were conscious, it was clear that each of us were having similar disorientations, from our tentative body postures and the questions we rattled off. Since none of us were firing on all cylinders, it quickly turned into a conversational roller coaster, of everyone expecting answers from the rest and no-one fully listening. "Are you okay?" "What happened?" "What do you remember?" "Did you see the nurse putting giant slugs on our mouths?" "What happened to the room?" "Is this the same place?" "What time is it?" "Where's our stuff?" "How did I get over here?" "What do you mean slugs?" "What happened to my slippers?" "Why are we all scratched up?" and so on.

Standing in a loose circle, in the middle of the mostly dark room, one or another of us would pace out or back, with occasional frustration or confusion. We all shivered in the cold, however under the circumstances clothing was relegated to a low priority. If nothing else, I was worried about falling asleep again and the crisp air helped to keep me conscious, if not alert.

Part of me knew that I should be more upset or panicked, as we kept talking over each other. However, instead, the babbling outside my head seemed to create some kind of pacifying harmony with my interior confusion. Thus, allowing some more of my recent memories to codify.

In particular, everyone's full names bubbled to the surface, helped along by the way in which we were addressing each other. Solana had been the one to insist "full names are more interesting" and "besides, I might want to send everyone a Christmas email, or something", when we had been sitting around the currently missing folding-table. Sociable extroverts always say and do stuff like that, which is impressive since I never had the energy for it. On the other hand, something in the names still sounded off to me.

Here is the thing about our names, since that day, I have learned how valuable such things as True Names are. So, I shall continue using the moniker I have established for a while, in spite of how it effects my over all tale. If you, dear reader, want to know any of our True Names, then you shall have to find us and bargain for each in turn. I guarantee that mine, at least, is no longer for sale as cheap as $1050.

In any event, our sextet sorted a few details out; too few really, however it was the best we could do. We were all sore, tired, and hungry, as if we had been doing a lot of manual labor, for a long time. One of the others did eventually mention that our appearances looked as messed up as the room—confirming that the others saw the same things, which I had been considering hallucinations. Solana seemed especially bad off, appearing sickly and thinner, although she did not profess any greater discomfort. Hank's tan looked more like a bad spray-on, Leroy's skin seemed darker—more like true black than dark brown—Ken appeared more weathered, leathery and older, Geri still, somehow, looked more disheveled than beaten—almost like a television star version of messed up—and her hair was shimmery and dark red. By the report of the other five, I had faired almost as well as Gerri, they said I looked more athletic and that my shaggy brown hair had lightened, also that I was both tan and paler somehow. As I looked at each of them, I could almost see how I knew they were supposed to look in a sort of double-exposed vision of how my addled mind was seeing them.

On top of everything else, I noticed that I kept trying to stand straighter, feeling as if I were slouching for some reason. Until, I realized I had not been slouching, rather I felt like the others had grown—some more than others—just enough to make me feel like my head was lower than it should be. When I made the observation known, they all nodded and agreed that it was I who was shorter than the day before.

"It has to be something to do with the drugs, they gave us." Ken rasped. He had admitted that he heard the change in his voice, but his throat was not sore. "Because, I swear, I am seeing better than I should be able to with just that crappy bulb." He jabbed a thumb at the lamp.

"So," I mused along, "you think we're more light sensitive?"

The aged looking man shrugged, "Maybe, but it has to be more to explain the distortions we see."

"And hear, and feel." I added my observation of Hank's skin texture to Ken's voice. "Plus, if we're just hallucinating then the room is probably not really messed up, but I can't find the missing beds." I walked into the empty spaces where a bed should have been.

As a group, we quickly conceded that whatever had happened to us was effecting our perceptions, yet determining our next steps was much more pressing, than arguing the about the cause. We took turns to walk through what each of us remembered last. After I recounted my memory of being last to doze off, Solana spoke up.

"I had sort of awoken to roll over." The unhealthy looking woman's hands were expressive, making a twisting gesture to illustrate roll over, as she recounted with a storyteller's enthusiasm. "I was just drifting off to sleep again, when a nurse entered the room, quietly pushing a cart with what seemed like jars on it." Pushing gesture. "At least I saw the jars eventually, because I did not bother sitting up right away." the lady's sunken eyes panned the rest of us as she spoke. "Anyway, she went around to each of you and did something near your heads." Solanna mimed hunching over a bed.

"At first I thought it was just another round of pills." Part of the drug study we had signed up for meant that we had to take a set of pills every few hours. "So, I figured I would stay put and wait my turn…"

Solana pursed her thin lips to one side and scrunched her brow in thought. "The thing is, Gerri was in the bed next to me and we had not bothered with the dividing curtain." Gerri nodded as she also recalled that detail and the Lit GA continued. "And there was light from the parking lot coming through the windows." Pale finger pointed to the windows.

No such illumination was accompanying our confused cabal. The self-same windows provided a hint of light, although nothing near as strong as a parking lot lamp, anywhere nearby.

"So," Solana went on, "I could see Gerri's sleeping face turned towards me. The nurse got Gerri second to last. I thought she was going to gently wake Gerri and give her some pills. I could just make out the nurse placing something glistening wet over Gerri's nose and mouth."

The storyteller met each of our eyes again, her own darkly-circled orbs wide with a mixture of conviction and pleading. "I freaked. I jumped out of bed and tried to run for the hallway," A sweeping gesture to the relevant door. "I could tell you all had large clear-ish slugs on your faces," A pause to let that sink in.

"The bitch nurse grabbed me and tried to slap one of the slimy things on my mouth too." Solana's nose wrinkled in disgust. "She missed my face and it hit my back. I felt drugged immediately and stumbled." She wobbled her whole body as an example. "Before I knew it, she got one over my nose and mouth and I blacked out."

"Then I woke up in the wrong bed, in this ransacked room, and started waking you." Solana concluded by waving towards Ken.

There was a long pause. I do not think any of us fully believed her any more than we believed what our own eyes had been reporting. It was most likely the sickly woman was just hallucinating worst than the rest of us. Yet, none of us had any better explanation. Not that Solana's story explained all that much, even if true and accurate.

Gerri broke the silence, bell-clear voice soft as a breeze, "Well, the nurse isn't here now. We've been up for almost fifteen minutes, by my reckoning, and no one has arrived. The only things I've heard outside of this room are those dogs."

Many dogs could be heard yipping and baying not too far away. I had not registered the canines until Gerri mentioned them, but then realized that I had been hearing them pretty much the whole time. I sighed with involuntary relief, as my eyes verified the fire-door was firmly shut.

"So," Gerri continued, her legs slightly apart and planted firmly and her hands clasped behind her back (even exhausted, I had to look away to not be distracted by what the stance did to her ample chest). "We need to assess what we do have to work with, see if there is anyone else in the building, and hopefully find a phone to call for help."

Hank readily and heartily agreed. The rest of us were relieved to be able to defer to the fireman and ROTC cadet as experts on this matter. The immediate inventory was sparse. No one had any footwear, although we were all muddy to mid-calf as well as our arms to the elbows. The mud smelled dank and vegetal and was still fairly damp. There was just enough musty blankets, sheets, and privacy curtains left to provide those of us without shirts some upper body protection and foot wrappings for the two ladies. Hank and Ken had both wanted a makeshift weapon, for some reason, however all of the furniture proved to be far too flimsy. Even the lamp was lightweight plastic.

We could only guess at the time. Room 106 was on the ground floor of the two story building and at a back corner. Our three barred windows still only looked out to a neighboring blank brick wall. The buildings were backed by lawn which led to a tributary of the Hocking River. Therefore, we were unable to see the road, to judge traffic flow, and the incessant hounds barking and howling prevented listening for the same. Not that the road had seemed well traveled, when we had all arrived. So, our collective best guess was based solely on the apparently full darkness outside, indicating that it was nowhere near dawn.

The next (what seemed like) few hours were like a horror movie come to life, one of those you-never-quite-see-it kinds. Our exhaustion and odd sensory distortions adding to the eeriness. Although, the so-called hallucinations remained very consistent, even the being able to see better than we should with no proper light source. Which part of me said was even more odd, as I had been under the impression that hallucinations would come and go, over time.

For the record, I have long since learned that I was mistaken about how hallucinations can manifest. Not that it was ultimately applicable, either way, as you shall also discover if you continue reading.

Outside, the howling dogs seemed close, closer than the nearest residential area, at least. So, added to the general tension and being barely garbed, none of us were eager to go out into the dark autumn night.

We stayed together as a group and searched the building. It was abandoned, no phones, computers, files, or much of anything- definitely no people, at least not on the ground and second floors. No response came to our calling down the stairwell, to the basement, and our apprehension by then had kept any of us from suggesting a subterranean excursion. By then, I was pretty certain, that all of my companions shared my horror-movie vibe.

While investigating, I kept getting brief reinforcing flashes of how the place had been, what could have only been hours ago. The tiled floors, plaster walls, and drop ceilings had all been clean and off-white, albeit to a nearly beige dinginess from age. The generic office spaces had been repurposed for semi-medical use, narrow beds instead of cubical-farms, extra toilets instead of storage closets, and so forth. The whole building had smelled of antiseptic mixed with human body odors, like most any clinics or old age home.

Our once-over revealed that the building was not only apparently abandoned, it seemed to have been so for months or more—dust covered everything and the air smelled musty, like an attic. The heating system seemed to be functioning, yet set somewhere in the low sixties. None of us noticed any thermostat controls, so we did a lot of shivering in our ragged-clothed states.

The one remotely good thing we did find—well, Leroy found-in the back of a high closet shelf, was some spare scrubs. Some of the other ward-style rooms also produced a couple more cheap blankets. Although, Hank also found one of the larger-style fire extinguishers and started carrying it around. No-one questioned the weightlifter about his acquisition, he clearly felt that the extinguisher might be a usable weapon and that seemed to raise his spirits. I had to smile as well, whenever I glimpsed the muscleman poised with the red cylinder, imagining the hilarity of exactly how such a fight would play out.

Gerri had insisted that we "sweep" the building from top down, so we did not discover the one technically used room, until the end of our tour. At the far end of the building, nearest the main entrance, room 101 was full of clear-fronted industrial-sized refrigeration units. Each fridge was filled with packets of bright-red blood or plasma, with Red Cross labels. There were pick up/drop off logs hanging on each storage unit.

Ken inspected one of the logs. "Here's something worth noting. Someone seems to access these units roughly every six months." The rest of us blinked at the dour man, he rolled his tired eyes and went on. "The last one was in early September… 2016, effectively fourteen-years after our check in date." I got chills that had nothing to do with the temperature, then Ken concluded. "And this log goes back a over five-years."

"So," Hank asked from near the door—he had taken to acting like a sentry as we investigated the various rooms, "they've been collecting blood for a long time? Kendal is a medical company, it seems like that's up their alley."

"This wasn't here yesterday." Ken shook his head and replaced the clipboard. "I distinctly remember other participants being assigned to room 101."

"Hey, yeah," Gerri snapped her fingers and pointed at Ken, "you're right. In fact there were eight people to a room, except for us in the last one assigned."

Hank snapped his fingers, "The furnace!" he went on to explain, while walking. "Ventilation systems require regular checks. Especially, if this is a legit bio-storage building, the inspector will have marked the furnace door."

Several of us were clinging to the hopes that this was a practical joke, maybe a reality TV gimmick. The furnace showed last checked October 13th, 2016… That was too much, for me. We had checked in on Friday October 25th, 2002. The idea that a prank would be that thorough was not possible to accept. I had to go.

My mind was reeling again, well it had not stopped, so lets say more—and I was not exactly surefooted physically. I kept trying to think of something that would make sense. All my thoughts turned out like the prank idea—evidence sort of fit to a point, then something would happen to disprove the idea. I felt like I was trapped in my own head, running in broken logic circles. The abandoned building only made it worse.

While trying to keep my breathing from going full-on hyperventilation, I grabbed one of the blankets we had found and used a screw in one of the broken beds, to make strips of cloth. Then I bound up my feet, as best I could.

The baying of the hounds had faded into the distance. Which may have subconsciously added to my impetus to leave. It was still dark outside, though.

Looking through the windows which did face the road, had confirmed that the parking-lot lights were out, however across the road and down a ways, there seemed to be a convenience store. We had all agreed that the store had not been there the day before. So, it had been largely dismissed as probable hallucination. However, in light of a preponderance of evidence, I had decided to believe my eyes, at least as far as a lit storefront was concerned.

My cronies just followed me and watched my frantic foot-wrapping actions.

"I'm getting the hell out of here," I jerked my head toward the front of the building, "and over to that Liquor store." I spoke while watching what I was doing with my feet. "They have power and must have a phone."

The other five people nodded almost dazedly and set to bundling their own feet and wrapping themselves in blankets, to the extent our "supplies" would allow.

Earlier Gerri and Hank had advocated for staying inside until morning, just to see better, if no other reason. The wildly barking canines were emphatically not mentioned. I simply could not wait any longer, though. Part of me even believed that dawn would never come, by that point.

Looking back, I am glad that the others all chose to come with me, rather than waiting for daylight. Especially, because when the hounds returned, I would not have been able to deal with them on my own.

As much as I wanted to believe that we were sharing mass-hallucinations, from whatever pills we had been given, I did not quite buy it. I could not shake the idea that, if I was hallucinating, then why was the pain, cold, hunger, and sense of time passing so consistent with my normal expectations and what my companions were reporting? It made me think of the old adage, "Only sane people worry that they are crazy"…or was it a fallacy not an adage?

The six of us made it to the convenience store and, thankfully, a smaller black "24 hrs" was painted below the large red "Liquor", on the backlit yellow sign. The store's parking area had one flickering lamp and the big yellow and red sign clearly needed most of its florescent-tubes replaced. So, far better illuminated than the Kendal building, however still quite shadowy by comparison to the BP station, one lot further on, lit like a beacon for astronauts to see. At least what could be seen of the liquor store's interior seemed well lit.

Gathering in the weak pool of flickering light, we assessed our situation. "You all realize," Ken rubbed his hands together for warmth, "we look pretty ridiculous, right? What's the clerk going to think if we all go in?"

Appraising each one another, I nodded agreement. "Yeah we look like a gang of homeless people."

"Or asylum escapees." Gerri said somberly while rubbing her upper arms for warmth.

"So," Hank proposed, "maybe we don't all go in? One or two will seem less threatening."

"Hey," Solana had wondered closer to the entrance and was pointing to the newspaper vending boxes; "I know someone mentioned Kendal may have been a prank show or something with the fake dates and stuff. But these papers say it's Monday, November 7th 2016 and they might still be yesterday's."

Which seemed to sink in with some of my colleagues in a way that the furnace log had done for me. Unfortunately the continuing confusion and fatigue merely caused the revelation to produce a distracted argument over what the dates meant, mixed with what we should do next.

From my perspective, whether it was 2002 or 2016, it was still definitely a bitter pre-dawn autumn mourning. Even with the lack of any breeze, it was still far to cold to be standing around, in what amounted to raggedy pajamas. Plus, the sounds of what we were guessing to be a wild dog pack seemed closer again. Not to mention how painfully numb my feet had become.

I threw up my hands and entered the small shop, not caring if my companions joined me. The door had bells that jangled. I blinked at how little my eyes twinged as they adjusted. The aroma that enveloped me was a not wholly unpleasant blend of dust, cardboard, old tobacco smoke, and warm spices. Most importantly it was warm, my feet tingling back to life almost immediately.

There were no other patrons. A grandmotherly-looking Asian lady sat behind the counter watching some talk show on a tiny, old, tube-television. There was a longhaired dog near the door. Around the size of a terrier, the canine was that Asian breed which looks more like a lion than a dog and it had three tails. I took a half-step away from the dog's extra tails, before figuring that it could have been a genetic defect (like multi-dactyl cats), if I was not simply just seeing things. As I tried to get my bearings, the aged animal shakily stood and started breathing hard at me, not exactly a growl, yet certainly not inviting.

All of my coincidental companions remained outside. The single glass door was so plastered with various advertisements that I had no idea what the others were doing, or even if they had remained. Part of me imagined that the group had thought that I looked most needy—like a grown up Dickensian orphan, in my rags—so they estimated that me alone would garner the most sympathy and assistance. A larger part of me figured that they all wanted to see how badly I would crash and burn, before they made an effort.

Staying by the door, I called to the woman, "Excuse me."

The clerk barely glanced at me, over her shoulder and through coke-bottle glasses. "You go!" In a thick accent, that I guessed was Chinese.

Meanwhile, the dog was staying in place, but getting larger. It was waist high and increasing. My stomach lurched and my mind flipped—not for the first time since waking. I would have run screaming, if the night had not seemed like a more threatening vast-emptiness. Instead, I told myself that the inflating dog was another trick of my mind, I also suspected that I was lying.

I kept my eyes on the creature and gave communication with the old lady one last valiant effort. "Er…"

"Nothing here for you! You go!" The woman snapped again. Not even looking away from the late-night commercial programming this time.

As far as I could tell, the dog continued to pulse, like a wheezing heart. On every other breath the furry thing was bigger than the last. It had increased almost to my shoulder. I backed out of the store, to another accompanying bell jangle, and closed the door.

My mind whirled and slammed disparate images and ideas together, looking for any pieces that fit. The six of us really did look like asylum escapees, so maybe we really were mad. Maybe Kendal was a mental hospital, the whole time, with the drug study being as much a shared delusion as everything else…

The wild-pack howled again, from somewhere beyond the river, behind the Kendal building, as best as I could tell. I found it hard to believe that I could imagine a sound that made my spine and organs so thoroughly tight.

The other five members of my party reacted less severely to the baying, instead prompting me for a report, since they could not hear what had gone on within the store. I complied quickly and encouraged moving on to the BP. However, I saw in their faces that none of them believed me any more than we had believed Solanna about her transparent slugs, particularly when I described the inflating dog. So, after a brief discussion Ken and Gerri decided to try their luck, in the liquor-store. I hung around out front, curious to see how well the duo would fair, but mostly unwilling to strike out alone into even the small patch of darkness between the store and gas station.

If all went well Ken and Gerri would convince the shopkeeper to call the police. However, I expected to wind up at the BP, hoping for a rare pay-phone, or perhaps a more accommodating clerk. I reflected on how much resistance I had received from my bedraggled associates, when I suggested the cops. Even fireman Hank had been leery. I heard a lot of variations on, "they'll lock us up", or "they'll put us in a loony ward, looking like this".

I agreed that without money to pay for the use of a phone or taxi our options were severely limited and our lack of IDs may cause some difficulties with the police. Absurdly concerned with appearances, some of the others started proposing elaborate scenarios in which we were mugged, or Kendal had put us into comas, or so on.

I had stuck to my guns, though, reiterating variations on, "The police are there to help people, regardless of why the people need help. Worst-case scenario, the cops put us in a drunk tank, or a homeless shelter and let social services deal with our story, or maybe we do end up in a loony-bin for a couple of days of observation. No matter what, each case means a warm place, with other people, and probably food, clothes, and a cot."

In the end the others had agreed with me, albeit seemingly from lack of energy to fight about it. Not that it really mattered, as I was going to call the police as soon as I could get my hands on a working phone, period.

Even so, while Gerri and Ken tried to get the obstinate shopkeeper to help, Hank and Solanna continued suggesting unlikely stories for the police. Leroy mostly just leaned back, on the lamppost, and sort of watched the road. Like Leroy, I ignored the talkers, even if they were serious about corroborating stories, I saw no value in it, as I would not be lying to law enforcement for these strangers.

Instead, I stayed as much in the middle of our group as possible and tried to stay alert, while chasing more and more fanciful options for what could have happened to us. Since all of my reasonable ideas had broken down, I fell back on the old Sherlock Holmes-ism "…eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth." I turned to fiction for inspiration; we could be in a mass Bourne Identity deal, maybe Kendal was a front for alien experimentation, and so forth. Of all the conspiracies that I came up with, the ones that seemed most likely were the hallucinogens. Either, it was a Total Recall variation, where I was really still in Kendal and merely imagining the weirdness. In which case, all of the people that I was with were manifestations of my own psyche. Which would probably explain why we all saw the same messed up stuff. Or, we had broken out of Kendal, but the hallucinations made us see tattered clothes, distorted bodies, wrong dates, and so on. For the next few hours, the back of my mind vacillated to and fro believing one or the other of the these possibilities.

After our two ambassadors had been gone for maybe a minute, those of us huddled outside could hear Ken's indistinct yelling, through the muffling glass-door. I cringed, as the yelling seemed to go on for quite some time, and I expected Ken and Gerri to come piling out any second, with a gorilla-sized dog chasing them. Even so, I also hoped that Ken's threatening behavior would provoke the old clerk to call the police.

Yet, when the pair came out, their pace was unhurried. Ken had a new T-shirt—depicting a cartoon snowboarding penguin—on over his scrubs, a brown cap—with "HEAVY METAL, TRUCKER" printed in bold orange letters—and a quart of Tangle Ridge whiskey.

I looked at the duo, with wide expectantly hopeful eyes. Gerri saw me and

her cupid-doll lips quirked down at the corners, while bowing and shaking her head slightly.

Ken pointed back at the store, with the same hand holding the booze. "I can't believe that woman. I was sure stealing would have prompted her to call the cops." He held the bottle for display and pulled at his new shirt with his other hand. "But, no. She just stared and said 'You go. You go.' He shook his head.

Looking back, as I do now, I believe that the elderly storeowner honestly thought we were safer without Athens' authorities involvement. I still absolutely disagree with the assessment. Although, I do not begrudge the sentiment.

The baying hounds sounded again, closer, like definitely on our side of the river and possibly just the other side of the abandoned Kendal building. I startled once more, dogs should not be roaming wild in a pack in Athens Ohio and they certainly should not be willing to cross wide rivers. I walked quickly to the BP and my party followed without comment. I felt a small twinge of relief upon entering the halogen glare that scoured the pumps and three quarters of the cashier station, not enough to relax my shoulders though.

It was a small station. The clerk (an African American lad) was inside a little booth of bulletproof glass, reading a textbook. The booth was barely bigger than the clerk and had a slot for passing money, cigarettes, and lottery tickets back and forth. The booth nestled within a slightly larger room, which had just enough space for several glass fronted refrigerators full of beverages, and maybe two or three people.

I nodded thoughtful approval, upon spotting the attendant's physics textbook. I reasoned that the book indicated, at the very least, that the young man was smart enough to be in college. Thus, probably more susceptible to reasoning, than had been the old Asian lady.

This time Solana joined me in entering. The two of us endeavored to make ourselves look as pathetic as possible, a very simple task at that point. I asked the attendant, "Could you, please, call the police. My… associates and I are victims of a crime."

I saw no need to go into any details with the stranger in the gas station. However, I also attempted to plant the idea that we were victims, not criminals. Especially, since when the lad had looked up, he almost jumped back at the sight of our little gang.

"Uh…" I had never seen a black man as nervous as this lad and he was behind ballistic panels. Of course, Solanna was next to me and the clerk may have thought that she was dying, from her appearance. The fellow eventually continued his sentence, "um, yeah dude, sure. I'll call the police, that's a good idea."

The clerk pulled out a device which turned out to be a cell phone and made the call. I liked tech stuff, but had never seen a cell like that one; there were no buttons, just a screen which he worked by touch. I stared fixedly, while my mind raced, pushing forward the facts that if a phone like that existed and was affordable to a student that had to work a night shift, then technology was clearly more advanced than 2002.

In the meantime, outside of the small service building, Gerri, Ken, and Leroy sat on the small curb on the side of the structure, while Hank stood like a super hero before them, cradling his mighty fire extinguisher under one arm. Ken and Gerri sat hunched forward and side-by-side passing the now open Tangle Ridge between themselves. Leroy leaned back against the glass and may well have been catching little catnaps. When Solana and I rejoined the others to share our news of success, the large black man remained stoically uncommunicative, although we would come to realize that was simply his way, so he may have been awake for all I could tell.

Hank was talking to the drinkers, "It won't help our case with the cops." He said. Of course this was from a man dressed as an escaped mental patient and carrying around a fire extinguisher for quote-protection-end-quote.

Solana simply cut into the conversation and announced that the police were on their way. Both ken and Gerri still had pinched eyebrows and sour expressions from dealing with the liquor store clerk. So, the sociable blond may have been trying to head off an argument.

I had been caught up in something I had seen. However, Solana's interjection and my own musings were set aside, because Geri jumped up and pointed to the patch of trees and scrub behind the stations little building. The hounds had arrived; they amassed without sound in the woodland-like underbrush, only their eyes could be seen—a foot or more above the ground and reflecting red light. I shuddered, as it seemed like more light was shining from those dozens of eyes, than was available in the environment.

We all moved with caution to the front of the building, Solana and I going so far as to re-enter the mini-store. After only a moment, Gerri came in, grabbed a couple of beef jerky sticks from a plastic bucket which was on the tiny shelf, on our side of the reinforced glass, said "sorry" to the attendant, and went back out and around the side of the building.

For all of his fire-extinguisher posturing, Hank barely moved enough to see wince Gerri had gone. Which was more than could be said for any of the rest of us. When the militaristically inclined woman returned to the front of the station, I cracked the door open enough to be able to hear what she had to say.

The pink had drained from Gerri's face and her bright green eyes seemed more unsettled than before. "There's something wrong with those dogs."

"What do you mean?" Ken's dry voice was clinically flat.

"I figured I could see what they were like. I mean like breed, or whatever." Gerri shrugged. "I stayed in the light and tossed a piece of jerky outside the pool of light, but away from the trees. Then an emaciated hunting hound, maybe greyhound mixed with a heavier breed, came out." She swallowed hard and glanced to where the dog had been. "It must have been the alpha male, 'cause when the others started to follow, he gave them a look and bared his teeth, as if he was growling, but no sound came out. Then, none of the others left the wood cover." Gerri hugged herself and started rubbing her biceps. "The alpha moved to the jerky and was looking around, like it was checking to make sure it was not in site of the clerk or any of the security cameras…" She nodded to the respective locations. "If that's even possible. Anyway, it gets to the jerky, sniffed the treat, stared at me—and I mean right into my eyes—then urinated on the jerky." Another apprehensive glance to the side.

"The thing is," Gerri got quieter, "I got the feeling it knew exactly what it was doing. Not like a trick or something, more like it was challenging me."

So, if Solanna and I were actually crazy, then at least our ranks were growing… Not a comforting thought, I chewed my lip. Meanwhile, Ken tried to reassure Gerri, and the rest of us, by claiming that she was just over-tired.

After about fifteen very long minutes of nervous silence and tensely watching the surrounding shadows, a patrol car did pull into the oasis of bright light. One officer was at the wheel, with a man in the back seat. No further sound or movement had been witnessed from the hounds and the overly reflective red-eyes had vanished. Even so, I could tell that my associates believed that the beasts remained nearby, as much as I did.

The officer remained on the far side of his car and made Hank relinquish his extinguisher. Hank complied, but looked very sad. Then the uniformed man had us all stand with our hands on his vehicle, while he got the clerk's statement. I know I probably would have refused to comply, if the cop had not parked well within the BP's light pool. I would rather have been forced into the cars trunk, than stand around in the dark with those dogs out there.

As it was, I only regretted not being allowed to sit inside the locked car. I regretted it less when I got a better look at the guy already seated there, though. He was naked, except for a police blanket. I think it was Gerri or Hank who recognized the guy from the clinical trial check-in lines.

The driver's door had been left open, so those of us on that side of the vehicle could converse fairly easily with the passenger, while the officer was occupied with the clerk. His name was Kyle and looked to be average height (around five-ten or eleven), with short, straight, mousy brown hair. Kyle also sported a short cropped mustache and beard, which matched his generally hirsute swimmer's build. disturbingly, the thirty-something guy also seemed to have long cat-like whiskers jutting from either side of his nose and little rounded tufty ears.

It made me squint with wonder, over why the old woman, gas station attendant, and policeman all just looked like normal people. Even if hallucinations were that selective, why would my subconscious pick and choose who to make look weird?

Kyle's manner of speaking took some getting used to as he told us his brief tale. The man seemed to be grinding and gargling his words as they tried to escape his mouth. "Yeah, rrrgh I was urrm at Kendal, yesterrrrday, rriRoom 105. Day irmph seemed normal rrerr unough, at rrr least, ir rrurrg was like urr we wererere told to expect. Ghrr we all hrrmph went to rrr bed arrround the irph same time. Rrr Then I woke rrorgh up on the rrrriver bank, errrrr cold and urr naked." He gestured to the police issued wooly blanket.

"I rrr picked myself urgrr up and rrurr headed towarrrrds the nearererest buildings with rrr lights. I mrrph made it rrr to a suburrrb. I was ghrrh trying to rrur think what to rrrergh do next, rrr when officererer Kovacs," he nodded to the policeman talking to the clerk, "rrghph picked me up. Irrm that was rrr about five minutes beforererere he got urrgh the call to rrr come hererere."

I was able to look into the cruiser without moving my hands and according to the clock on the dashboard; it was close to 5:00 am. I still was not sure if it was Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, 2002, or 2016. At least having a sense of the time of day, afforded me some stabile point of reference from which to build upon. A middle-aged man did pull up and deliver new newspapers, though, then headed over to the liquor store to do the same. So, if we had read the date on the earlier papers correctly, then it was somehow Tuesday November 8th 2016.

Eventually, Kovacs finished with the clerk and resolved to take us into custody; charged us with being a public nuisance and vagrancy. Apparently, the clerk had not wanted to deal with pressing petty theft charges against Gerri. I was almost elated as I imagined that the result would be getting us to a holding cell while we contacted our families to settle any fines. I did not relish having to pay my parents back, however the terrible nightmare I had been living seemed like it might be close to an end.

I have since learned to avoid such ominous thoughts. I am not certain they affect my future, however I never feel quite as bad when things get worse than when I had imagined them getting better.

Officer K called a paddy wagon, rather than trying to jam seven of us into his patrol car. By the time the new vehicle arrived and we all (including Kyle) got loaded in, it was after 5:30. I had spent the time fairly zoned out. Having an armed police officer nearby had afforded me enough sense of security that what little adrenalin I had left tapered off dramatically and I mostly just concentrated on staying upright and awake.

The back of the police van had hard benches, smelled of old vomit and urine, and was poorly heated. On the other hand, it was a chance to sit, get away from the hound pack, and was still warmer than being outside. Due to our sickly appearances (some more than other), Kovacs informed us that procedure required us to be examined by a physician, so we would be stopping at O'Bleness memorial, before the police station. It was after 6:00 am by the time we were unloaded and escorted into the hospital and the sky had started to lighten.

[All 18 chapters of the completed story may be viewed at the Archive of Our Own website, by searching my user name "GitariArt".]


End file.
